I turned back to the transcript, the one a genetic counselor had helped me prepare after everything, because I needed to read my daughter’s own words in order and not just have them recited to me secondhand.
At the bottom of the page, in the counselor’s careful handwriting copied from the original recording, it read:
Mum, if anyone’s reading this to you instead of me telling you myself, then I ran out of time before I meant to.
I couldn’t breathe.
I kept reading.
Micah’s father was Callum Reyes. He died before he ever knew I was pregnant. I found out three weeks after his funeral.
My knees nearly gave out.
There was more.
I went to see his mum. I really did try. But she was so broken, and when she told me Callum never disappointed anyone, I understood that in her mind he was still perfect, still exactly who she needed him to be to survive losing him. I couldn’t be the person who added a complication to the last clean memory she had left of her son.
Then, further down:
